Tag: Life

It’s been a while since I updated, nearly a month it seems! I haven’t updated because I haven’t been knitting for going on 3 weeks now. 😦

Since my last post on April 20th, I managed to struggle through the wrist pain I was having and get Elektra finished in time for our vacation. I still need to photograph it. It’s been raining like crazy here and I keep forgetting I need finished photos!

I took NO knitting at all on vacation with me. My wrist was feeling better after a week of barely using my left hand for anything. When I got back home, I tried to knit and my left wrist started hurting before I even finished a round on Slipped Hours. Went to the doctor and was told it’s tendonitis. He gave me some anti-inflammatory medication, told me to keep it in a brace and it should feel better in a few weeks. A little over a week later, it’s not hurting as much, but then again I’m trying not to use my left hand at all which turns out is REALLY hard (it wasn’t nearly so difficult when my right hand was the problem last August). It’s not feeling much better overall and I’ve noticed some tingling in my ring fingers that started today. Sigh.

Since I haven’t been able to knit, crochet, or spin, I’ve been reading a lot of books on my Kindle. I finally finished Girls of Murder City, then breezed through Water for Elephants in a few days. The story completely sucked me in and I could barely put it down. I tried to read Everything Illuminated because I absolutely loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I just couldn’t get into that book at all. Now I’m reading Bossypants. Matt kept telling me I should read it, so I downloaded the sample and got sucked in. If you’ve got any book recommendations, send them my way! I like a very wide range of books and since I seem to be flying through books at the moment (okay, fast for ME since I’m not a very fast reader), I’ve already got my eye out for the next thing I’ll read.

So… I know this isn’t much of a post since I’ve not been knitting, but I hope to have some photos of Elektra to share soon. I also hope I can get back to knitting soon since it’s kind of killing me to not be knitting right now!

Oh! BTW, anyone going to the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival this coming weekend? I’m planning on being there on Saturday. Any locals that want to carpool with Diana & me are welcome to and if you’re going to be there, maybe we can meet up! Hey, if I can’t knit, at least I can go visit pretty yarn and fiber, right? 😉

I’m going to be serious for a moment here. I know I don’t get very serious about any sort of issues here, but this is one that is close to my heart. Yesterday was Veteran’s Day. I don’t talk about it a whole lot, but I’m a Navy veteran and serving in the military really changed me in ways I didn’t expect. Now, on Veteran’s Day, I feel rather emotional. I feel a deep loss for those who have lost their lives during wars, I feel for the friends and families that stand by their soldier’s, sailor’s and airman’s side while they are away, and I feel for the friends of mine still in the service. Yesterday, on NPR, they talked a lot about veteran’s, the recent shooting at Fort Hood army base, military personnel currently serving or recently back from the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and various veteran’s issues. I had a hard time listening to some of it and at points had to turn it off. Regardless of what you believe about the wars currently going on, please support our troops and veterans as much as you can. Volunteer with veterans organizations, host a soldier/sailor/airman for a holiday (there are many “adopt” programs if you live near a base. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to be able to spend the Christmas I was in boot camp with a host family.), and do what you can to show our military that we care while in the service and while out. Trust me, you will touch their lives, even if they never tell you so. I’ve been the recipient of kindness of strangers while in the service and as a vet and I try to pay those kindnesses forward to others whenever I can. I hope you will (or do), too.

That said, I don’t know about you, but holidays mid-week really screw me up. I feel a bit out of sorts today! (I’m sure yesterday’s emotional roller coaster didn’t help much.) Anyhow… on with the knitting stuff. 🙂

Since Sunday, I’ve finished two projects I can’t talk about (gifts). I have one more secret project I’m going to start very soon (another gift). Looking at my projects, I feel like I need something else on the needles. I’ve lost momentum on the colorwork socks because I’m not sure how to work the next part of the design, plus they take quite a bit of concentration, so they have been put aside until I figure out what to do next. I like the Spooky sock I’m working on, but I think that the colors aren’t really doing it for me right now since Halloween has passed, so I haven’t been working on those much. Multnomah is seeing some progress because I absolutely love the yarn, though pictures aren’t showing much since I haven’t reached the edge pattern yet. I need something that will catch my attention again like the two projects I can’t show here did.

I looked through my stash and there was a yarn that caught my eye.

Dream In Color Classy in Spring Tickle

I bought this yarn with the intention of making another Liesl since I enjoyed knitting my first one so much. I think I’ll cast on tonight. 🙂

After that, I think I’ll get back to Waves of Grain since I finally bought bigger beads yesterday and I have plans to knit some pillows for our living room. The dress I showed my last post is now dry and I’m pretty happy with how it looks after blocking. Still needs buttons before I take pictures, but I’ll have some soon. I know what I’ll be changing in the next version and hope to have the pattern up once I knit a revised version.

Plans for this weekend include Game Day at our place with some of my knitter friends, possibly going to Jungle Jim’s wine festival (which was featured in The Wall Street Journal), and lunch with family. Should be fun! Do you have anything planned this weekend?

Friday, we made the final big grocery store run before the housewarming party Saturday.

Fridge Stuffed Full

Saturday morning, I had to do the final run to the grocery store for ice and when I returned, the first guests had arrived. It wasn’t long before we had a house full of people, though! In the end, we had a lot of food, a lot of company, and a good time. I think Rock Band was being played most of the party!

Rock Band: Matt and Jerry on vocals, Caitlin on bass, Andrew on Guitar, and Billy on drums

I haven’t had much interesting knitting going on. I’m still working on Starlight and have pretty much put everything else aside to work on it. I’ll be leaving for Rhinebeck in a week (wow, time flies!), so this takes priority over all other projects at the moment! I’m working on the second sleeve and I’m about 2/3 of the way through it. This weekend I’ll be sewing it up and blocking it. That reminds me… I still need buttons!

Starlight Sleeves

Since I don’t have that much knitting to show, how about I show you some lovely yarn that arrived recently? Laura gave me a Loopy Ewe gift certificate for my birthday (it was last Friday) and I purchased a skein of Sea Silk (150 g) in Sangria.

Hand Madien Sea Silk (150 g) in Sangria

I’ve already decided what I want to do with it, too. I’m going to make the Waves of Grain scarf. I still need to pick out beads for it, but I’m considering not doing beads at all or maybe contrasting beads instead of matching ones (maybe teal?).

First weekend in who knows how long that we have no plans! And it’s a three day weekend! Hoping to get some sewing done and finish the sweater up this weekend. Next week is a 2 day work week for me… then RHINEBECK!! 🙂

I was a busy knitter this past holiday weekend! Saturday I finished the Secret Garden Shawl. Here it is pre-blocking, measuring 30 inches across.

Pre-blocking

Sunday, I washed and blocked it. It took about an hour to get all those pins in it and my fingers were rather sore after.

Blocking

It seemed pretty dry by the evening. I gave it overnight to dry, just in case there were any parts that weren’t quite dry yet. It took a good while to get all those pins out and my fingers were even more sore after I pulled all of them out, but… it’s DONE!! I thought it would never end. The last clue’s rows seemed to last an eternity!

Pattern: Secret Garden Shawl (My Ravelry project page.)Started: July 23, 2009Completed: September 5, 2009Yarn: Green Sheep Fingering in Hearts on Fire, 2 skeinsNeedles: US 6 bamboo circular and DPNsNotes: I lined up the double decreases from clue 3 with the ones in clue 4 by moving the marker. In clue 5, I didn’t need to move the marker at all for the double decreases in row 11 to line up with the double decreases from clue 4. In clue 5, I only did one chart repeat because I was worried that it would end up too big. It probably would have been fine with the 2 chart repeats, but I like the size it ended up (4 feet across). This is the first shawl I’ve knit that used fingering weight and the first shawl I’ve knit for myself. (Other 2 shawls were bulky weight and worsted weight, both gifts.)

I think I’m done with shawls for a while! Well, I do have Ishbel on the needles still and I’ll probably finish that, but nothing quite as big as this one is going to happen very soon. I think I just need a break from it for now! As a celebration for finishing the shawl, I started and finished the Bellona Cowl this weekend. I don’t have a picture of the finished cowl since it’s currently blocking, but I hope to share that later this week. 🙂

I think all this non-sock knitting has finally caught up with me and I’ve been itching to do socks recently. I’m figuring out the last little details of a sock design, but I think I’ll cast on for that very soon, maybe even today! Speaking of socks, I did actually start a pair recently. It’s the mystery pattern for Sock Knitters Anonymous (SKA) for the month of September. It’s designed by Nancy Bush. So far I’ve knit clue one and clue two was just released today. I’m using Socks That Rock mediumweight (mill end) on US 2’s.

Clue 1 of SKA Mystery Socks

Now that the shawl is done, it’s back to knitting Starlight. It’s a little over a month until Rhinebeck! Still plenty of time, but also a lot going on between now and then. I’ve been doing good keeping myself motivated to knit it and as long as I keep that up, I should have it done with time to spare!

We got new sofas last Friday. We used to just have a futon in the living room, which didn’t offer much seating, especially after rearranging the living room to accommodate the surround sound system. We picked out these from IKEA and they’re the KLIPPAN series. I think they fit nicely in our living room!

Matt approves!

I have to share last night’s dinner. We made the most delicious dinner! We had scallops, golden-crusted brussels sprouts, and white rice (with butter and salt, yum). Oh my!! It was SO GOOD. Normally, I’m not a fan of seafood, especially scallops. Most (most, not all, there are a few exceptions) people and restaurants that I’ve encountered overcook them, so generally I avoid them. Yesterday, though, Matt cooked these absolutely perfectly with some garlic and olive oil. If I didn’t have a stomach the size of a bird, I would have eaten all of them myself! Om nom nom nom! The brussles sprouts were really good, too. All together it was a perfect combination and nice end to a great weekend.

How was your holiday weekend? We didn’t do much for a change. This is actually our last free weekend for a while. Lots of stuff going on this month and next. All good things, though! It was nice to hang out at home and have my sisters and Matt’s brother over this weekend. 🙂

I feel like I have a lot to share today. Yesterday, for some reason, I didn’t feel like I did. I think part of it was that I don’t have good pictures of something I recently finished (I’ll get to that), so I was going to wait to blog until I had a decent picture. If I do that, though, I know what will happen. I’ll wait and wait, then have so much I want to update on that the post will be insanely long and I’ll put it off. Life isn’t perfect, pictures aren’t perfect, so on we go! 🙂

Last week, my TLE Anniversary Kit arrived. I don’t know if I’ll use the pattern with this yarn, but I do like both. The colors of the yarn are even better in person then they were on the website. Sometimes, pictures just don’t do something justice! The kit came with 2 skeins of Lorna’s Laces, a TLE mug, sock pattern, and tape measure.

TLE Anniversary Kit

This weekend felt a little busy, but not in the “running around everywhere” busy way that it had been feeling. It was busy in a “let’s get all this stuff done around the house and have people over” way. On Saturday, we got up fairly early and Matt mowed the lawn.

Matt mowing the lawn.

I was the “helper” that got to sit and knit until he needed me to clear some branches that he didn’t want to mow over and sweep the grass off the sidewalk and driveway. It worked out well and didn’t seem to take too long to do. After that we spent some time setting up the rest of the game systems, unpacking boxes, and moving some stuff to the basement. Saturday evening we went to dinner with my family for my dad’s birthday (his birthday was Friday). We went to a Mexican restaurant and it was yummy. I swear I could eat Mexican food every day for the rest of my life and be fine with it! Sunday we were up fairly early again and finished unpacking and moving stuff around. We set up the shelf in the kitchen Saturday night, so I finally filled that with the rest of our kitchen stuff that doesn’t fit in the cabinets. Very glad that’s done with! I think seeing all the boxes around was getting me down a bit. It’s so nice to not see these piles of boxes everywhere anymore.

Sunday afternoon, we had invited a bunch of people over for a potluck/game thing. Karen, Than, Sarah S., Jessy, Brian, and Alita were able to make it and Lisa stopped by briefly and got the grand tour of the house. We ate good food and played Trivial Pursuit and Rock Band. I forgot to take pictures while everyone was there, though! I didn’t think about it until later, after Jessy, Brian and Sarah S. had left. I did get a picture of Karen, Than, Alita and Matt playing Rock Band, though! We’ll definitely need to do something like this again. It was a lot of fun!

Left to right: Karen on vocals, Matt on drums, Alita on bass, and Than on guitar

On to my most exciting knitting news… Friday, I finished Hey Teach! I took a picture with my iPhone, but since it was kind of dark, it didn’t come out too great. It’s done, it’s done, it’s DONE!! Once I get some better pictures I’ll do a full FO report with commentary. The good news is that it fits me and I really like it. 🙂

Proof Hey Teach is DONE.

Last night I finished up the first bobbin of the Scarlet Macaw I’m spinning up. I probably have over half of it left to go, but I really like how it’s turning out.

One bobbin done!

I also finished up one repeat of the lace chart of Clue 4 of the Secret Garden Shawl.

Secret Garden Shawl

The next and final clue doesn’t come out until next Friday (August 14th), so I have some time to finish it up. Since this will be done soon, I’m already thinking about what lace I’ll knit next. Thanks to Karen, I’ve been reminded of two shawl patterns I want to do: Shipwreck and Aeolian. Since I was already planning on ordering new yarn for the Little Birds Cardigan from Knit Picks (going to use Palette), I decided that I want to use Palette for both of these. I love all the colors Palette now comes in! I don’t think I would have thought to use it initially, but then I saw a few people had used it for Shipwreck. When I looked at the colors, I just knew the color I wanted to do it in: Marine Heather. I’ve picked out beads for both from Fire Mountain Gems. I love having knitter friends so that we can do combined orders for things like this and get discounts! 🙂

Today, it’s rainy out. It makes me wish I could just stay home and knit! Hope your week is off to a good start. I’m still trying to remember that it’s August now! (Can you even believe it??)

There are so many things I’ve been wanting to talk about here, but I just haven’t had the time! Between the new job and moving, I’ve been quite busy the last week or so. I wrote down a few topics I wanted to cover on the blog and hope to share them with you all over the next few days.

This weekend we moved into the house. It took us Saturday and Sunday to get all the major stuff moved, then on Monday, we filled up both of our cars with stuff on two trips to get what we thought was “a little bit of stuff left” at the apartment moved to the house. Tuesday we had to turn in the keys, but we still had to get another trips worth of stuff in both of our cars before we could clean a little and turn the keys over before the leasing office closed. We made it, though, and now everything is over at the house! Of course since there has been repairs going on at the house this means we’re living in a sea of boxes while things are getting finished. The first night we stayed at the house was Sunday and while we knew we’d have no a/c for a few days, we didn’t expect to not have hot water. Since then, we’ve lived without hot water and a/c, but I’m crossing my fingers we get both today. We had the a/c and heater replaced right away instead of waiting and because of that, we had to go without hot water because the gas line to the water heater was disconnected while they were installing the other stuff. There’s still other things that need to be done, of course. The living room floor, steps and upstairs hallway are going to get refinished soon, so that’s the next big thing until we decide to do the kitchen. The rest is just small stuff.

The bedroom was the first room unpacked. Can you guess which room I’m getting anxious to settle in to?

The craft room! I think it’s done being painted now, but since I wasn’t sure I haven’t unpacked anything yet. I did take some pictures of it, though!

I didn’t realize it at the time I picked out the paint, but Michelle recently painted her craft room yellow! Now we have matching craft rooms! It made me giggle a little when I realized our craft rooms are the same. What can I say? We both have good taste. 😉

I do want your opinions, though. I’m considering not putting the closet doors back on the closet and instead putting up curtains. What do you think?

Last week when I blogged, I mentioned that I was going to start the Cotty socks. I’m almost done with the first one!

Just before I started the cuff lace.

Cuff lace – about to start the ribbing for the cuff.

If you’re on Ravelry, you may have heard of WIP Wrestlemania 2009 (Ravelry link). I decided to join in to give me even more motivation to get some things finished up that have been hanging around. It starts today and runs through the end of July. The idea is to get as many WIPs completed before Winter Ravelympics 2010 starts, so the whole month of July you “wrestle” your WIPs so that you don’t have a whole lot of projects laying around come the Winter Ravelympics 2010. You can see my WIPs over there in the side bar and I’ve decided to try and complete them all! I’m thinking I could do all but the shawl, but we’ll see where I stand closer to the end of the month.

To give me an added boost to get Hey Teach back on the needles and finished so I can get some wear out of it this summer, I figured WIP Wrestlemania might help. I cast it back on Monday and have about 3 rows done on the back piece.

Time to get going – knit night is tonight! ‘Til next time, happy crafting 🙂

Last night I finished up the Sprucey Lucy socks, which means I also finished my first pair for the 52 Pair Plunge III!

Pattern: Sprucey Lucy Socks by Wendy Johnson (My Ravelry project page.)Started: June 1, 2009Completed: June 16, 2009Yarn: The Yarn Bearer Uber Sock, April 2009 Sock Club shipment with the theme of “Falling”Needles: Knit Picks US 1 (2.25mm) DPNsNotes: I changed the heel to a short row heel because I find they fit my foot better. The yarn was great to work with! First time I used this yarn, I made a Marlene sock that I ended up not liking and frogging. Then I decided to use it for this pattern, but I used US 0’s and knit the medium size. I didn’t like the fabric I got with US 0’s, so I frogged what I had and went up to US 1’s (2.25mm) and knit the small. Worked out much better and I love the socks! The lace pattern was easy to memorize, but it wasn’t until the leg of the first sock that it really flowed for me. If I hadn’t put these socks aside to knit Hey Teach, these probably would have been done a lot sooner. Took me 3 days to knit the second sock, but almost 2 weeks to do the first one! Ah well, sometimes I get side tracked 🙂

Pair 1 for the 52 Pair Plunge III! 🙂

On Monday, I finally decided to fix the strap on the purse I made a few weeks ago. When I made the bag, I didn’t think about the size of it and how only having one strap would make it sag in the middle while I’m carrying it. The sagging in the middle was making the D rings for the straps to turn and start damaging the fabric. I needed to do something about this, so I decided it needed two straps. Monday I finally went to the fabric store and got a set of four D rings in a 1/2 inch smaller size so that I could make 2 new straps and attach them to the bag.

This is what the bag looked like before with only 1 strap.

I used my seam ripper to get the tabs on each end out and sewed up the spot where they had been. Then, I used my seam ripper to open up where the new straps should go and I sewed together two new straps and four tabs to hold the D rings to the bag. Once those were all put together (with interfacing and all that jazz), I sewed the tabs with D rings in place, then sewed the straps onto the D rings. Since the initial tabs were sewn into place between the inner lining and outside lining and I wasn’t willing to take it all apart to make it perfect, I had to hand stitch the parts where the tabs were to make it look right and not gap in those places. It probably took me about 2 hours total to do between doing laundry, but it’s done now and I absolutely love how it turned out. So much better then just having the one strap!

“New” bag, now with 2 straps instead of 1!

Right now, I’m just working on a pair of baby socks I started. There’s no intended recipient yet, I just wanted to use up some left over sock yarn. I think I’ll get these finished up before starting something new.

Little baby sock, just started the heel.

I want to start Hey Teach over again, but I also want to cast on for the Lacy Ribs sock. This would actually be the second time casting on for the Lacy Ribs sock since I frogged my first attempt because I thought it might be too bulky in my shoes, so this time I was planning on knitting the foot in stockinette and the leg with the pattern. I didn’t bring Hey Teach with me today, but I did bring the yarn for Lacy Ribs, so I’m guessing that I’ll get started on that first since tonight is knit night and these baby socks shouldn’t take too long to finish up.

This past weekend on Sunday, we washed the walls in the house with help from Alita, Karen, and Than. Without them, there’s no way we could have done it! Thanks for the help!! There was a leak we found from a pipe that had bulged and burst when we were turning on the water for the first time, so now the kitchen has a nice hole in the ceiling that needs to be fixed, but at least we found it now instead of after we moved in. Matt and his dad were able to find and fix it, thankfully. The house is currently getting painted and this weekend, I think we’ll start to move stuff over to the house. Things that we don’t really need and can live without for a week or more. Oh the joys of home ownership and moving! hahaha 🙂

Happy Mid-Week everyone! I’m still trying to figure out how it’s already the middle of June. Where does all the time go?

Next step is to wash and block the pieces. I haven’t had a whole lot of experience blocking things. Only one sweater I ever knit needed to be seamed I didn’t block because it was made out of Caron Simply Soft and it didn’t seem worth it to bother with since it’s 100% acrylic. Hey Teach is made from Cascade Sierra which is 80% cotton/20% wool. The pattern says to block the pieces before seaming and knitting the button band. My initial thought was “be lazy, just seam it up now, knit the button band, then wash and block it!” For me, once something is blocking, it means it’s DONE. I’ve done a fair amount of blocking, but that’s mostly consisted of “wash and lay flat to dry” more then “wash, pin flat, let dry, seam together.” I have blocked shawls, so I know how to do that, but I wasn’t sure what the benefit of doing that to the pieces would be vs finishing it then blocking. So, I asked with Laura about blocking. As it turns out, blocking should make the sweater easier to seam by getting rid of the curling ends, so I definitely want to block this before seaming it up. It should also open up the lace and make it easier to pick up the stitches for the button band. My only concern is the loose stitches on the back and front pieces that you pick up when knitting the button band. I think I’ll put them on waste yarn (they’re on stitch holders right now), then block it. We’ll see how that goes!

Since Hey Teach is at the point where I can no longer knit it, I’ve gone back to the Sprucey Lucy socks. I turned the heel the other night and now I’m working on the leg. The first time I knit the heel, I started it too soon, so I had to rip back, add an inch, then do the heel again. It could have used another 1/4 to 1/2 inch on the foot before starting the heel, but I haven’t decided if I want to rip it out again. I’m thinking (hoping) it will grow some when washed and I don’t want it to be too lose, so I think I’ll leave it as is. Even if it doesn’t grow any when I wash it, it still fits well – just a smidge more snugly then I usually make socks. I might end up liking that, though!

Sprucey Lucy, picture taken today on my lunch break while sitting and knitting in my car

While I’m on the subject of socks… I have a confession to make. I joined 52 Pair Plung III. I think in a moment of complete tiredness or craziness, I thought it was a good idea to join, so I did. For those not familiar with the 52 Pair Plunge, the goal is to knit 52 pairs of socks within one year (June 1, 2009 to May 31, 2010). Socks can be done in any pattern, yarn, or size (baby, child, adult). I’m thinking I can do it. If I throw in baby/kids socks to be donated or gifted and some thicker socks for wintertime for me (and maybe others), I think I could get quite a few pairs done pretty quickly that way. My goal is to knit as many pairs as I can in a year. Aim for 52, but not stress if I don’t get there. I want to challenge myself, here, and this is one heck of a way to do it! (I’ll be keeping track of my progress here.)

Somehow, this week seems to have flown by without me realizing it. It’s been a busy one, though. This past weekend we picked out paint colors because… Monday, we closed on the house!!

This weekend we will be washing down walls in preparation for people to paint before we move in. We’ll be moving after the painting and some other minor repairs get done (before the end of the month is out). I have a feeling that all this moving and new house stuff might get in the way of my knitting for a while, but I’m okay with that! Moving out of the apartment and into a house will be a welcome change. No more Mr. & Ms. Stompy McStomperton upstairs! I get my own craft room, too, which I’m super excited about :o)

I’m kind of glad this week is almost over. Despite it seeming to go quickly, it feels kind of long and drawn out at the same time. I’m looking forward to some down time this weekend. How about you? How’s your week been? I’m still trying to figure out how it’s almost mid-June!

This weekend I had Matt take some pictures of Decimal for me so I can do up the full FO report.

Pattern:Decimal (My Ravelry project page.)Started: March 19, 2009Completed: May 31, 2009Yarn: Elann Lara, color 335 Algiers Teal, 9 skeinsNeedles: US 4 Addi circulars, 32″ Lace Addi’s and 16″ regular Addi’sNotes: I knit the 49″ size. I did make a few modifications. I added an additional border repeat to the bottom and sleeves of the sweater (3 instead of the called for 2). I also changed the sleeves to be short sleeves instead of 3/4 length bell sleeves and knit them in the round instead of flat. Instead of sewing the buttons on at the end, I decided to knit them in instead so that I had less finishing. When I joined the sleeves to the body, I did the bind off for both the sleeves and body where the armpits are at the same time so I didn’t have to sew them later. I wanted minimal finishing and I definitely got it! I had all of 3 ends to weave in at the end since I was weaving them in as I joined new balls of yarn or came to a knot in the yarn (there weren’t many of those, thankfully).

In this post, I talked about how it was too long initially. Then I washed it in the washing machine in warm water then ran it through the dryer, which shrank it an inch in length, which I talked about here. If I were to knit this again, I’d probably take out 2 to 3 inches in the length of the body somewhere. Possibly even in the top/shoulder area because the buttons start a little lower then I expected. I do love how the final product turned out once I washed it, though!

On Saturday, Matt and I went to the Paul Mitchell school to get haircuts. I wanted to just get my hair trimmed and get rid of the dead/split end, but it turned out that I had about 4 to 5 inches worth of that! I was thinking maybe and inch or two needed to come off, so that was a bit of a surprise. Then again, it has been about 4 or 5 years since I last had it cut! I went with it, though, and said cut it off! My hair person, Sam, was really nice and she has family that has really curly and thick hair that she’s cut and styled, so she already knew quite a bit about it (plus the knowledge from school), which I really wasn’t expecting since most people who have cut my hair didn’t know much about how to deal with it. From her suggestion, I decided to get it layered, too, which is something I’ve NEVER done. I really, really love it, though. There’s much more body to my hair now and since it’s no longer weighted down in length, it’s a lot more curly. Best $12 haircut EVER :o)

Old hair, New hair (front), New hair (back)

This weekend I had a lot of time to work on Hey Teach, so it’s coming right along. I have now finished the back, left and right front pieces. I started on the first sleeve today. I haven’t taken a picture since I finished the right front yesterday, so here’s what it looked like yesterday morning.

I’ve done a little work on the Sprucey Lucy socks, too. I don’t have an updated picture, though. After ripping out the Lacy Ribs sock, I decided to go up a needle size for the Sprucey Lucy socks and I like how they’re turning out a lot better. I re-knit up to the heel, then tried it on and realized it wasn’t long enough, so I ripped out the heel and I’m adding another inch before doing the heel again. I really love how they’re working up in The Yarn Bearer’s Uber Sock yarn!

Pattern:Leyburn (My Ravelry project page.)Started: April 24, 2009Completed: May 6, 2009Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock Mediumweight in the “Dixie Girl” colorwayNeedles: US 2 Brittany birch DPN’sNotes: I changed where the increases for the leg were because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t realize I was supposed to increase the top of the foot before I turned the heel, so I did all the leg increases after the heel. By the time I got to the second sock, I admit I was tired of the pattern. I like how they look, but the leg is a bit on the big side and a little loose.

Now for what you’re really here for (you can’t fool me! haha) – what I brought home with me from MDS&W!

Mostly sock yarn! I wasn’t really looking for anything specific for yarn. I did want to get enough yarn to make a sweater and I think that the Brooks Farms yarn will end up being the February Lady Sweater. I knit a lot of socks, so sock yarn makes sense to buy, especially with the two sock KAL’s I’m in on Ravelry AND the Summer of Socks coming up! As for the fiber I bought, I just tried to get some things I haven’t used yet. I think I managed to do that. Merino/seacell, merino/bfl/angelina batt (first batt!), superwash merino and merino (I’ve used merino before, but those colors!! I had to have it).

I did end up changing the color of the fish on the Swedish Fish Socks I was working on. I went with the Fuchsia and I really like how it looks now!

“O hai, we are pretty Fuchsia colored fish!”

I also started the Kai-Mei socks for the Cookie A. KAL on Ravelry. It’s a little further along then this photo shows, but it’s k3, p3 ribbing for the first 5 inches, so just imagine it a little taller.

K3, P3, repeat FOREVER! hehehe

Since I knit a lot of socks, you won’t be too surprised that I cast on another pair, but I won’t be showing a photo of them until they’re gifted (sorry!). If you’re on Ravelry, though, you can see them on my project page.

Going back to work next week, so I’m sure my knitting time will go down a bit, but it will be nice to get back to work after being out for so long. Should be interesting, to say the least!